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    Re: J m Greer at his best. Could I suggest a new phrase "cultural solipsism" Archived Message

    Posted by John Monro on April 18, 2019, 11:11 pm, in reply to "Hilarious - but also kindly and persuasive - piece by JMGreer on gender dysphoria and -"

    Darn - I've written quite a nice line for this posting, but it has vanished into the ether.

    I wrote that isn't what G M Greer is writing about is a form of solipsism? When I started, I thought that this was an original idea, but then I see someone commenting making the same point.

    Solipsism as defined by Wikipedia - Solipsism (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ ( listen); from Latin solus, meaning 'alone', and ipse, meaning 'self') is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The article then goes on to discuss the philosophical and historical basis of solipsism, in detail, and it's pretty hard to follow. And undoubtedly, if you asked a hundred people at random "what is solipsism", at least 90 of them wouldn't have a clue.

    There's this formal definition, but informally solipsism can merely imply egotism or selfishness. But even in its informal use, surely it implies rather more than either of these traits?, in that solipsism says the only reality is one's self, then it becomes the means by which reality can usefully be denied - mere selfishness wouldn't explain this.

    We now have a President for whom the word solipsism may well have been invented. A good number of developmental psychologists would suggest that solipsism is an innate characteristic of infants, which they gradually grow out of. It certainly fits with most people's understanding of Trump's behaviour and speech as being so obviously infantile.

    But in that denial of reality seems to be coming more commonplace and acceptable - the denial of expertise, fake news, "alternative facts" for instance, and here adding J M Greer's gender dysphoria, are we seeing the rise of what I might call "cultural solipsism". Of course understanding what solipsism means, this term might be considered oxymoronic. Perhaps we could then postulate a solipsistic epidemic?

    Perhaps all this is a natural progression of the pre-eminence of individualism in our society and as supported in the neoliberal economic theories that presently rule us all. After all wasn't it the captain of the neoliberal ship, Margaret Thatcher, who infamously said "there's no such thing as society"

    Anyway, I'm not clever enough to pursue these ideas much further, but it might be useful if the wider population were to learn what solipsism means - that it might make for an interesting philosophical discussion, but it's hardly a principle on which to build a functioning society and at its apogee it is in fact a destructive idea that could cause immeasurable harm?

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